Author: mdk

Drick piloted the executive grav vehicle deeper under the overpasses heading down to the lowest levels of Sector Six. On the monitor screens Drick was following the view of themselves from two satellite surveillance remotes and the three stealth robots that were tracking the vehicle. In a moment the satellite overhead view would be lost. That was unfortunate for Drick but it also meant that the people following would lose their orbital cover as well.

From the reports coming in from the team Boomer had assembled Drick had drawn quite the small crowd of admirers. There was a hover van that was back of Drick’s six, maybe three hundred metres away, in a light white paint job. Knowing the vehicle design Drick guessed this to be an Armoured Light Personnel Carrier, probably an Shirow-Vickers. The paint job would be adaptive stealth coating made to follow urban vehicle patterns. From the way it moved it was likely to be fully equipped with twenty armed organics. That was excessive in Drick’s mind, they could have sent half that many and caused enough of a problem to make Drick change tactics real quickly.

There were four organics on electrical scooters. Three-wheeled, multi-terrain, pursuit vehicles. Again a model made by a number of companies but Drick would have laid bets on them being Shirow-Vickers again. Looked like Volsron had a contract with that particular weapons dealer. Drick wasn’t surprised they were maybe the second or third biggest armoured vehicle corporation in the whole of human expansion.

The real issue was not the troop transport or the three bikes, it was the squat jet vehicle. Like Drick’s vehicle this was an armoured gravity machine. However this would be a Shirow-Vickers urban assault vehicle. Sold to police and paramilitary forces and used to take on criminals with maximum aggression. It would be unlikely that it would be equipped with missiles, well at least not high-ex missiles. But it would have guided gun emplacements. The subtle bulges to the rear of the vehicle spoke of retracted gun turrets. That was worrying as the armour on Drick’s vehicle could take a good number of hits, but that thing likely carried thirty-two millimetre armour piercing rounds.

Drick followed the guide lines on the navigation computer which tracked the general direction of resi-crete roads. Ground based vehicles and low-level hovers needed the construction of roads, it was still the most practicable and safe form of traffic management. An organic needed a pilots licence to unlock a vehicles flight systems and even with one of those many hire vehicles would not allow unlimited, or free, flight. Drick had a full licence and was paying a hefty sum for this vehicle. All of its systems were unlocked for their use.

Drick checked the screens and noted that the final overhead view blinked out as they went to sub-level two. It was an odd naming system. Sub-level two was actually over ten floors up from ground level. The sub didn’t refer to ground but the point where road, building and construction covered the visible sky. In this heavily industrial and populated part of the city that started at the eleventh floor.

Sub-level one started at about floor twelve, maybe one hundred metres from ground level. Drick was heading towards sub-level six the point where the maze of roads and buildings turned the area into a series of badly lit tunnels. Sub-level seven and below was storage, vast water and resin tanks and the waste disposal systems and machinery from the city above.

There were people who lived in the tall gaps between constructions on those levels. Some by choice, others by desire, many with no other option. One could lose themselves in the lowest levels. They were rarely visited by most organics. They were the home to gangs, criminals and the dispossessed, the forgotten. The police only went to those levels in full combat armour and with heavy backup.

Drick knew that many of the maintenance companies had a lucrative side profit in paying gangs and people on these lower levels for their own ends. Many of them were off the grid either by being declared non-existent or by being vatted that way. It was certainly true that the Engineers’ Union, the only group that held a presence with authorised premises on these levels, were the closest resemblance to a crime family on the planet. Aside from, as Drick would have it, family owned corporate organics.

The Engineers’ Union mandated all construction work in the city and everyone used a union man for the work. There was no avoiding this. The Union were the only people who could fix the machines in these sub levels. Sure you could hire an independent contractor, but don’t pay them up front as the work wouldn’t get done, your machine would end up more broke and the contractor would be mailed back to you as a skin-shake.

Drick entered the level and noted, with a slight smile of satisfaction, that a new group of shadows had joined the tail. The armoured personnel vehicle had dropped behind an auto-loader. This was a huge automated delivery vehicle and they were using it for scover as there were few other vehicles around. The three trikes had shot past Drick’s vehicle using a lower ramp and were now about one hundred metres ahead. As for that combat vehicle it was seemingly absent, however Drick knew it was one level up and following Drick’s the route from above.

The new shadows were overtaking the personnel vehicle and truck to come alongside Drick. They were a hoverbike gang. There were plenty of these in the city. Kids and mild anarchists for the most part but on some of the sub-levels they were a bit more organised. This particular group were very organised. Part of a larger series of gangs called the Street Razors.

The Razors that were around Drick numbered maybe thirty and had obviously took a liking to Drick’s vehicle as they weaved around it. Sometimes swerving dangerously close to the front, sometimes flipping their bikes over the top or sliding underneath, a neat trick considering Drick had it hovering at less than one and a half metres from the surface.

Drick made some complicated but graceful manoeuvres to try and lose them and make the point that there wasn’t going to be an easy intimidation but this only made them move in closer. Drick noticed the three trikes had slowed to get a better view of what was occurring and that the vehicle behind had moved up, around that automated loader, with its contingent of troops.

This was what Drick had hoped. In fact relied on from the moment that Boomer had pointed out the three vehicles to Drick. They only wanted the one of them.

Drick suddenly swerved and so did all the bikes and the armoured vehicle as the executive car flipped the central barrier using manoeuvring thrusters and made a bid to go the other way. The trikes headed towards the nearest turning but were suddenly playing tag with three hoverbikers each. The other group of twelve hoverbikers were swarmed onto one side of the armoured vehicle. As it tried to jump the central barrier they hit it in a concerted attack and flipped it onto its roof. Several of them leaping their bikes onto its now exposed floor.

The effect was drastic. The personnel carrier didn’t have full flight capabilities. Normally when flipped it had an emergency self righting system, which wouldn’t work now as too many vehicles were piled on top of it. The vehicle would immediately shut down and eject foam pinning the personnel inside, in order to preserve life. It was a safety feature for urban driving. Drick had relied on it which is why they had told the bikers to execute this plan.

Drick shot off a turning and down towards sub-level seven, time to see if they could draw their real target down to a more interesting playing field.

Drick was in a long queue of parked vehicles sat outside the main headquarters of the security and traffic division of Volstron Enterprises. Drick had been idling on the edges of the perimeter at various points for about three hours now. They were sure to have detected the vehicle as soon as it came near and Drick wanted them to get a good look.

The cursory amounts of evidence collected so far pointed at only one conclusion, either Volstron were covering something up or someone in their corporate structure was covering it up. Drick had a gut feeling that it was the company rather than an individual, unless it was senior management. There were two many events. The loss of thirty blocks of information. Massive legal team and out of system investigator. The offers of large sums to drop the case. Breach of justice systems, or paying someone in the department to alter evidence and monitor conversations. Then there was the public attack on Drick to warn them away.

This was not a small fish looking big in the pond, this was someone with credits and influence and they were either very sensitive or they were hiding something massive.

Drick had wondered what was keeping them on the case more than once in the past three hours. They could have taken the payout and moved on, easy credit. But here they were expending time, money, favours and effort and there may not be any reward. So why the hell was it so important?

The more Drick chewed on it the more the answer became easy. Running it several ways around didn’t make the motivation any more complex. It was because Marsh didn’t know. Because they woke up with a head full of confusion and missing memories. They were, and it was rare in the universe to find anyone over twenty who was like them, an innocent.

Marsh was, potentially if Drick were to take all of what they said at face value, a remnant of a forgotten century. An anathema, an artefact, dispossessed in time. If their story were true they were at least a millennia and a thousand light years from where they were supposed to be. That raised a huge number of questions in itself.

Drick was naturally curious, it was the mark of a good investigator. That curiosity had been selected and matured before Drick had even drew a breath. Drick was a product, more construct than most that are mixed in a vat and grown in a tube. Drick had been designed in an age that needed very specific types of organics. An age that most of the skin jobs walking around today would consider almost to be myth.

Five hundred years ago the world that the people here lived upon had been mostly a desert with two redeeming features. It had an abundance of fissionable ores and an atmosphere that could be breathed with a respirator mask or surgically fitted organic filters. The current populace had all been born or grown for this atmosphere so such surgery or hardware was unnecessary.

Back then it was a mixture of mining colonies and construction engineers. Creating building materials and changing the environment in a decades long war with the natural ecosystem. Mankind had learned how to wield war with nature and win in the gasping pollution of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries.

Their home world may have paid an irreversible price but the technological lessons they had learned held the answer to their salvation. Mankind had gone to the stars. Slowly they had expanded into the starry void at first. Then with advances in lifespan and vehicular acceleration, coupled with the eventual control over gravity, at great extent and pace. They had altered their bodies to fit their new homes and flung themselves to the farthest reaches they could manage.

The city that was now dominating this equatorial island where most of the population lived was built by those engineers. They had vision, foresight, and the desperation to plan for their extended lives and expanding civilisation. They took local rocks and ground it to dust so they could recombine it with bio-engineered plastics from algae and lichen. Two life forms that were able to survive in the most inhospitable of places and ideal for colonial expansion.

The universe was powered by fusion generation using radioactive isotopes and plastics from these algae. The organics that inhabited these worlds were grown mostly in vats from biological material harvested from the general populace. Very few children were born anymore. Only the über rich and elite had the money to afford such luxury. Most people were grown sterile.

Drick had the vehicle’s active security turned up full but it didn’t detect the organic who was targeting the rear as it was parked in a side street where Drick had just moved to. Thankfully Drick had partial cover from her angel and was fully aware that the vehicle was in a scope. For that reason Drick was able to stay calm and allow the sniper to fire their special weapon at the vehicle. There wasn’t even the breath of an impact. An insect would had made more sound if it had landed on the roof.

But the vehicle had been hit. With a very special paintball. A traceable isotope if Drick guessed correctly that a highly tuned sensor array could follow discreetly from a distance. Which is exactly what Drick had been hoping for. The lure had worked and Drick had snagged their prey.

Drick waitied a good ten minutes before pulling away. Drick made sure to park up at two other spots around the perimeter keeping up the pretence of watching the building before moving the executive vehicle onto the main highway and heading down to the lower levels.

If Drick was correct they would be followed and if they planned this right they might get a nice catch. What Drick needed was someone slightly higher up the pay grade than standard security, someone with a modicum of power and an education, or at least a downloaded education. There was no way that Drick was ever just going to walk in the front door and get answers without more proof, so Drick had to draw someone out to talk to, and this may have just worked.

Drick sat in the comfort of the executive gravity vehicle studying the police reports of the crime scene and nearby roads when there was an incoming comm. Looking at the wrist display Drick noted that it was a call from Hooper.

Drick flicked the comm to the main display of the vehicle and turned the screen to visible. If anyone wanted to hack the call they would be less likely to be able to get into the vehicle’s systems than Drick’s own.

“Hey Hooper,” Drick said as Hooper’s face filled the windscreen and a display started giving Drick call statistics including the active protection systems which displayed any threats to the communication.

“Drick,” Hooper looked more tired than a few hours would warrant.

“What’s the problem?”

“I have a bit more information for you but there is a level of warning with it.” Drick nodded and noted that the active threat systems had detected someone attempting to trace the call and to break into the communication. It was a large attack and it was coming from the source of the call, Hooper’s end, which was justice central.

“Are you in a good place to talk?” Drick knew that the conversation wasn’t yet being monitored but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t someone sat behind Hooper or with a boom mic trained on the officer. Drick hoped the phrasing would leave Hooper an ability to manipulate any possible outcome while giving precise meaning to Hooper that there was an issue.

“I’m at my desk. I have the privacy screens on.” Hooper paused and stared into Drick’s eyes for a long moment. “This is probably related to the fact that I am still unable to get any information about the dead driver.”

Drick raised eyebrows but didn’t make any comment. Drick tasked the active defenses on the communications system to do a counter-sweep to try and gain as much information as possible about who was trying to track Drick and listen into the call.

“The ident was damaged and they do not appear on any justice department records. They are also not on any corporate registers that we have access to and no corporation is claiming knowledge.”

Drick dropped their head to one side and pursed their lips still keeping silent.

“It gets more interesting if you add the fact that the data gathered about the crash from the bots at the scene has recently become corrupted. Some kind of issue at the time of collection caused the information to regress to unusable data. There is also little information from the scene despite their being full sweeps by justice and the corporate security teams.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Drick’s tone was neutral but their mind was racing. So whomever wanted this covered up was willing to access and distort justice department records and to post-fix the truth. The case became more interesting and dangerous by the moment.

“You sure you don’t want to give this case up? The offer to transfer has been sent again, they upped the credit bonus to do so.”

“I will consider it.” Said Drick, “meanwhile can you ensure that Krennar gets a place to operate from?” Again a neutral sounding request that Drick hoped Hooper would interpret correctly. “I have a few things to do and then I am going to rest with a cold drink. Later. Thanks for the information Hooper.”

Drick cancelled the call but kept the systems in their search, hopefully someone would make an error. This was becoming more twisty a case, and Drick was even more intrigued. With each turn a new avenue opened up and another player became involved. Who was being paid at justice central to hack evidence, breach privacy and attempt to illegally track private citizens?

Drick let out an audible sigh as the robot parking service delivered the car that Krennar had chosen for them from the parking bay. It was done with little fanfare, a hatch opened in the smooth highway surface and a lift brought up the desired vehicle.

In Drick’s case it was an executive hover vehicle that was presented. A sleek silver saloon that was large enough to hold a small team of players from one of the sports leagues but would probably only have four seats. It was powered by a fusion reactor that would probably last half a millennia and had full gravitonic plate control.

Drick wondered just how much this was pulling on their credit flow as the vehicle drifted gently to them guided by a small tugger bot. It was likely to be a bloody expensive smooth ride.

Normal hover vehicles used the much cheaper gravity nullifiers to resist gravitational forces. This was a technology built on the interaction between gravity and electromagnetic repulsion.

Essentially nullifiers used a series of charged electromagnetic plates that put out enough of a field to cause a resistance, more a repulsion, of gravitonic fields. Hence them being named nullifiers as the effect was to nullify some of the attractive force of gravity and not actually resist. Often having standard octane jets or air manipulation thrusters to accompany the effort.

Gravitonic plates worked much more efficiently and actually repulsed and ejected the elementary particles of gravity by means of a quantum interface that utilised and interacted with gravitons. This system allowed the plates to affect the stress-energy-tensor quality, manipulating energy and fundamental particles directly to create motion. It was a highly effective manner in which one could move in any direction ignoring the effects of the relative gravity. It did not, however, ignore inertia and gravitonic plates would allow you to smear yourself at high force if used badly.

The technology was not new but it was used sparingly because of the high energy costs to manipulate quantum particles and the many patented pieces of equipment needed to run a vehicle fitted with competing systems. To Drick’s recollection no one mega corporation owned all the relevant pieces of technology and software required to build and safely use gravitonic plates, they had to be licenced individually. The cost was high in both hardware and software as each of the plates needed an artificial intelligence to operate the manipulation of quantum relationships.

The net result would still be the same. Drick would have a hole in a credit account that you could pilot a small planet through.

Drick got into the vehicle thanking again that Krennar had implanted Drick’s ident into the ship’s main computer. The ship did a very fast connection to Drick’s implants as they got into the vehicle and reset the screens and driving preferences to those stored on Drick’s systems.

Drick did a cursory check of the vehicle’s capabilities and would have emitted a low whistle had they been perusing it in a showroom. Fitted with a wealth of standard communication systems with very secure privacy modes; a top speed that would make some jets blush; several intelligences, low age, to manipulate many of the systems like navigation and driving and flight sensors; an auto-pilot with a significant number of actual flight hours; full repulsive plating in case of collision which loosely translated was state of the art armour. The only missing element for Drick was a weapon’s array. But that could always be compensated for, if one knew what one was doing.

Drick registered themselves on the traffic grids and set in a group of locations and allowed the computer a moment to assess routes and traffic flows. While it chewed through its own data Drick opened up a link to the central traffic systems and pulled regional and historical data and fed that in so that the system could do a full probability test. The company that leased this model did not spare any expense on any of the systems and the mapping system was capable of spaceflight astrogation. Might as well use all the processing power that hard earned credits was paying for and choose the best possible time to visit all the places on the quick list they had made.

Drick got their answers in a few moments and gunned the drive systems. There was an almost, inaudible to most, whine that Drick heard clearly and likened to sweet music. It was as the plates charged and converted electrical energy into an electromagnetic manipulation of quantum gravitons with the end result being the vehicle lifted smoothly into the air.

Drick cast an eye on the outside screens and forward mapping and sensors. There was a small knot of people admiring the vehicle, might as well give them a small display.

Drick let it look as if it was drifting backwards. It was not drifting. Drick was purposefully making it look like a drift, this vehicle had perfect geo-stationary capabilities on autopilot.

Drick waited until it looked as if they had everyone’s attention then gunned the power to fifty percent along the pre-programmed path. Drick smiled with satisfaction as several Gs pushed them into the adaptive cushions and the spaceport disappeared in a blur of concrete and steel.

Drick walked out to the reception bay for parked vehicles and passed the robot attendant a prepaid ticket. Krennar would have secured a vehicle, at Drick’s expense, and Drick hoped that it was something nondescript and reliable.

The robot attendant set the bays automatic parking systems to retrieve the vehicle, Drick noticed a queue of maybe thirty people in front of them so there was a wait of at least twenty to thirty minutes. Busy time of the day it seemed.

Drick stepped into the shade of the building, the suns were high overhead in the hottest part of the day. This season had been unseasonably warm with little cloud. As usual it was an advantage to those who could afford electronic countermeasures to protect them from the harsh glare. Drick pulled on some glasses and dropped a cap over their head.

Using the small respite from the harsh sunlight Drick opened a secure comms link to another contact, this one an old friend. Knowing their preference Drick used an internal retina screen to connect and was mildly surprised that they sent a visual to the link.

This was a first. Drick pulled an artificial construct of themselves on a neutral background in response. Constructs were controlled by a neural interface, if Drick had had a good unit would be as lifelike as Drick themselves. Drick did not have such a unit fitted.

Drick was not at a safe enough location to risk a live video feed so this construct would have to suffice. Drick nodded, “Boomer.” they said.

“Drick, it has been a very long time since we talked. I imagine that your location is insecure, as always.”

Drick smiled and instructed the construct to follow their vague facial expressions. “I am not. It took me by surprise that you are using a live feed.”

“Ha,” Drick was looking into tired eyes in a face that had far more lines to it than the last time they spoke. “Product of my decaying years. There is less for me to hide from these days, less that is hunting me, and less that cares what I say or do. I am crawling nightly towards some final resting place.”

“Did you start reading classics again?”

“I surely did and that is why this addled brain random quotes and mashes it all up into something with a semblance of speech. I didn’t expect your call and we don’t have a social relationship so what is it that you want from me?”

“Age hasn’t addled all of your wits then?”

“I’m still smart enough to deal with whatever bullshit you’re about to bring to my door.”

“Heh. I need to call in a little specialist help. I need some help of the call-to-god variety.”

“All out of your own better angels?”

“Nope, but I don’t need lesser seraphim. This one is starting to stink up real quick and real nasty, already racking up a count of people who I have annoyed. It is likely some mega-corp screw up and probably something minor for the person of the right talents, such as me, to expedite. However they are being touchy about things, so either a high executive is being an idiot or it is a bigger pile of a hornets nest than I imagined. Either way I need someone who knows how to provide the type of umbrella services I had use of back in the day. That’s you.”

“And I owe you so you can pull in that favour I owe you, that right?”

“Come on old timer,” Drick said with more affection than they wanted, “I doubt this is going to be big enough for that score to be settled. I doubt you have enough capital to truly pay that off.”

“Ha. You’re probably right. You must have people younger than me who can help you. Maybe a few who are as old as you who don’t hate your stinking guts who might help you. There’s got to be some not so close to crawling.”

“There’s plenty of people like that. But all of them have a price whereas you have a very big debt. I trust that more.”

“It could be the chance I need to let you get smeared, that’d clear my debt.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen.”

“Sure. I guess that’s true. Do I get any time to prepare?”

“Yeah, you have about thirty minutes until I collect my vehicle at the spaceport I am going to wire you an access code to an account as you are going to need supplies and extra bodies. You still got anything approaching a team.”

“In that space of time I will have something but I will not grace it by calling it a team. I will work something out.”

“You always do. Anyway i need to know what’s out and about around me pretty much twenty-four seven from as soon as possible until I say to clear out and leave me alone.”

“Must be bad if you contacted me so quickly.”

“So quickly from what?”

“Well I just turned on the news feeds and found out there are two bodies and three serious injuries from a scuffle in the executive corridors of the spaceport and then out of the blue you have called and need some better angels. Shit Drick. You don’t change.”

“I do. It’s just a glacial shift.”

Drick left the executive cubicle after taking time to put a loose fitting cover over the combat suit. Drick straightnened hair and ensured that there were no evidence traces on their body. Doing a quick check in a full length screen Drick opened the door to the main corridor.

Drick stopped just outside the main door and surveyed the four security guards, three justice bots and two justice officers who were outside in the corridor. There were two bodies on the floor under thin polythene sheets. So two of the assailants had died. No doubt that the other three would be in a medical treatment facility.

Drick stopped as two justice bots scanned them, they obligingly held out the wrist containing the skin dent and waited while the bot interacted with the implant scrolling data across Drick’s forearm. The bot would be downloading the most salient parts of Drick’s history to the justice officers which is why the two officers had suddenly had looked up in surprise and started to move in Drick’s direction.

“Identity,” snapped the first one unnecessarily as Drick still had the arm outstretched palm upwards.

The justice officer scanned with their own handheld monitor much slower than the droids who would surely be better. So this was an intentional delay, some tactic, or maybe they were just an idiot. The officer had the tattoo on Drick’s arm display everything contained in the implant.

“You’re a combat veteran?”

“That’s what it says on the chip.”

“It doesn’t have too many details except that you had a long service. Why is that?”

“I only ever worked in logistics.”

“Really, well that is a field best suited to those of low ability and enough brains to take orders from a tactical computer.”

“If you say so, officer.”

“I served in the forward ranks and never got as far as comissioned officer and yet a pen pusher like you gets to have the rank of Major. That sickens me.”

“Are you still a reserve?”

“Yes. Why?”

“So am I, maybe one day we will serve in the same regiment, wouldn’t that be nice.”

“We might be in the same unit but I’d be on the front line.”

“Not all logistical work is done from the rear.”

“How long have you been in that bathroom?”

“I didn’t do an exact count but maybe forty minutes in total.”

“That seems like an excessive length of time. Was there any reason you needed that long?”

“That’s a rather personal question. What business is it of yours?”

“We are investigating an incident involving multiple assaults and deaths. For some reason the monitoring was down in this whole section.”

“Really,” Drick spoke without a trace of sarcasm, “there seems to be a lot of that going around. I am sorry to tell you that I have nothing to report to you at this time.”

“You heard and saw nothing? No suspicious screams or shouting, the sounds of impacts?”

“As I said I have nothing to share with you at this time.”

The officer looked at Drick for a long moment, “your current occupation is investigator isn’t it? Primarily insurance companies?”

“That’s correct.”

“You working on a case right now?”

Drick smiled, not without any warmth, “I am as a matter of fact.”

“Would it have anything to do with these people here and the three we sent to the med bay?”

“I suppose that it is possible that they may have some slight involvement, but nothing that causes me an immediate need to investigate them.” Drick widened the smile and did a level best to look innocent, “unless you think that I should officer?”

“You leaving system any time soon?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Good, don’t. We may need to talk to you further, I am certainly not satisfied by your answers and I think you have something to do with this. I will be looking further into your logistics career.”

“Do what you must,” said Drick politely, “I am fairly sure you have all the information you need to find me. If you need anything further you’ll have contact details from my implant and I am fairly well known at central so there are a number of organics there who can get me on a personal number.”

Drick let the last statement sink in. Beat officers always reported to central and Drick had just confirmed a relationship with at least one person there. It would naturally be someone of a higher pay grade that a beat officer who, ironically, would usually take orders from a bot that worked in the logistics department of justice. Drick laid on the relationship as it was a fair warning that the best route was to tidy this particular incident as cleanly as possible and drop further investigation. Drick would place real credits on the three assailants in the medical centre having a very bad case of amnesia, if they even stayed long enough to give a full statement.

“May I go about my business?”

“Sure,” the officer had an angry clip to their voice but they moved to one side so that Drick could walk on.

Drick closed the door to the private wash room inside the executive toilets and turned on the military grade scrambler that was in their pack. Once the signal had achieved a steady blocking pattern ensuring a high-degree of privacy Drick opened up a link on a comms implant and waited for the answer.

Drick was using a text-based communication transfer so prepped their thoughts for using the internal speech to type translator. This was an onerous task as the translator Drick had implanted was a very early model. One day they would get it updated beyond being flashed for new words, phrases or languages.

“Waiting.” The first message from Drick’s contact scrolled across the retina display and then auto-deleted itself from all records and logs. This was the preferred communication method of a Slicer called Rodero.

“Landing section thirty seven, executive corridor, less than two minutes ago, retrieve all footage and identify subjects. If possible track currently fleeing subjects. Alter any identifiable element leading to subject who exited or returned to the executive washroom in the previous thirty minutes from this time stamp.”

“Understood.” a long pause, “that has been set in motion and I am receiving all footage. Do you require copies?”

“Yes. To the usual location. I have other work for you.”

“Proceed.”

“I am uploading a complete data package to the shared area. I want it analysed as much as possible. As many connected details that can be recovered will be appreciated.”

“How will payment be made?”

“You have access to the appropriate account. Take what is needed.”

“You are always so trusting.”

“I know how to find you.”

“Anything else?”

“Clear your workload for the next forty eight hours, at least, I am sure to have more work . To start I want all information you can gain on Volstron Services and Yee On Kline. I don’t need any conjecture or hyperbole, just what can be proven, or reasonably proven.”

“It will be done.”

Drick closed the connection and took a deep breath, not to take a little plunge down a rabbit hole.

To achieve a hyper-sensitivity to motion and thereby reduce the lag of reaction caused by over-processing elements gained primarily from auditory and visual senses you must learn to un-focus. This in itself seems counter-intuitive.

Centuries ago the effect was noted by those researching combat pilots or game players. The ability to uncouple the visual reception from over-processing in what could loosely, back then, be described as the frontal lobes. Essentially the thinking part of the brain gets in the way. It interferes between the Occipital lobe and the Parietal lobe. Decouple the Frontal lobe by not forcing a focus allows the retina to record all visual stimuli possible and pass it at greater speed to the spatial mapping capabilities of the Parietal lobe.

Practitioners of combat arts also use this technique to calm the mind and gain extra information from the senses related to touch and sound. Adding them to the spatial awareness. By allowing the mind to be free of distraction the Temporal lobe can be stimulated into greater sensitivity. It is apocryphal that blindness was often used as a training exercise to strengthen the relationship between hearing and touch in the Temporal lobe to be associated with greater spatial definition in the Parietal area of the brain.

Drick had released dopamine into their bloodstream to calm the nerves and allow a greater level of resistance to fight or flight theatrics as they slumped slightly in the suit. As the eight teachers moved in Drick allowed their mind to build a complex spatial map adding any understanding of speeds, vectors and force to estimate the attack pattern.

This was in the first second of the combat as Drick allowed the attackers to move in. Drick had already drawn a sphere around themselves which was now the field of combat. Drick would restrict all activity to the inside of that sphere, this was going to be a hand to hand fight and so range played no part in the equations that quickly were built.

Drick felt a surge of energy as at the start of the next second there was a massive drop of epinephrine from the enhanced medulla oblongata and they took an intake of breath that would be audible to those approaching. But what they heard or saw now was irrelevant as the fight was a committed fact. The release from the medulla part of Drick’s brain kept vast stores of epinephrine available still in the adrenal glands while increasing blood flow, heart rate and respiration. It felt as if liquid fire had been poured into Drick’s bloodstream.

Drick saw the first arm swing towards their head. It was fitted with a carbon-resin cestus equipped no doubt with a stunning electrical charge. Part of Drick’s mind had registered the slight whine of electrical circuits charging up, most of these attackers would be fitted with electrical shockers or stunners to reduce Drick’s ability. They were in for a surprise.

The attack came in at head height but Drick’s head was already two feet below the arm as Drick bent sideways. Drick shot a gloved hand up to catch the cestus noting that the charge had been released harmlessly into the combat suit’s armour. The sideways motion allowed Drick to see the second closest attacker.

At the same moment Drick grabbed the outstretched arm, they flipped backwards and snap kicked both feet from the knees into the second attackers neck. Using the gravity negation Drick was able to roll around the first attacker’s arm. Drick’s weight may have been dramatically lowered but their mass was unchanged. Drick used their mass to swing around the arm rotating the wrist and then rolling along the arm towards the attacker’s head noting with satisfaction that the wrist shattered and bone popped out of the top of the cestus.

Drick released the grip and completed the roll so that they were facing the first attacker, by now they had completed a two hundred and seventy degree flip and a barrel roll bringing them face to face with a screaming howling face and in range of attacker number three who received a snap kick to the forehead. The third attacker’s head snapped backwards as the enhanced carbon fibre and kevlar boots smashed their skull.

Drick was not distracted enough by this to not punch the first attacker in the face, bringing the heel of a palm up under the nose and pushing cartilage backwards and into the lower part of the brain cavity.

Drick ignored the screams from attackers numbered two and three and the silent falling backwards of attacker one as they were out of the combat. Drick took a step backwards and then back flipped around an outstretched arm to avoid the next attack, number four who had aimed a shock-stick, a short rod with a high discharge electrical contact at one end. Crude but very effective and enough to place a charge through the suits ablative armour.

Two thirds of the way through the flip Drick tucked legs tight into their body to fall closer to the floor. Then Drick pushed out against the hard surface and grabbed attacker number four around the waist with a head buried firmly into a solar plexus. Drick had grabbed both arms by the wrists to prevent the usage of that stick and drove number four into the ceiling with a sickening crunch.

Number four was not fitted with gravity nulling equipment so they fell quickly, which Drick used to spin around and ride atop their attacker to the floor where they impacted with a loud snap and a scream that was quickly turning to a gurgle.

The first ten seconds of combat were over and four of Drick’s attackers were incapacitated. The other four, a group of two and two singles were still moving in but much more warily. Drick noticed the single attacker who was close to Drick’s rear pull out a different weapon activating a wrist shield as they did. It was a mono-filament whip. That was an effective weapon for slicing whole pieces from someone.

Drick used the nervousness to great effect, turning towards the three attackers who had short stun sticks. Drick screamed and took a step forward. They reacted as expected and stopped, one even took a short leap backwards. This was enough distraction. Drick heard the attacker behind with the monofilament move in as expected. Drick fell forward bending their leg that they had stepped forward with to almost ground level then kicked down and backwards to backflip and spin around their own axis.

As Drick went overhead they were almost pleased to note that the attacker couldn’t keep up with events the attacker raised the whip to attempt a slice along Drick’s body but Drick had anticipated this and already had the attacker’s wrist caught and bent backwards before they could even flick the release catch that extended the whip.

The wrist snapped and Drick easily pried the whip from the attacker as they dropped to the side of them. A quick flick of an expert wrist and Drick lopped off the attacker’s own hands at the wrist where one hand held the limp broken other.

Fifteen seconds and now there were only three attackers left. Number five was passing out and soon would be bleeding out from the loss of both hands. Drick flicked the whip to their other hand keeping a primary hand free for the next manoeuvre. But it wasn’t to be. The three remaining attackers turned and ran.

Drick raised an eyebrow and then restored the gravity to normal on the combat suit. It took less than a minute to search the five attackers and Drick could already hear booted feet running along a corridor nearby. Drick opened the door to the executive bathroom and went inside to a private cubicle. It would be a few minutes before they would look inside and Drick would have some protection in the form of privilege in this restroom.

“This can go two ways.” The voice was calm and confident though Drick could detect a slight quaver that might be nervousness but was more likely to be caused by stimulants.

“Really?” said Drick, “we are going to go with that old cliche? I guess it will be either the easy way or the hard way or you’ll swap one of those out to my way, our way, the fun way, the preferred way, the way that I am underpaid to ensure is understood, the way to some old town where your sweetheart lives? Am I close?”

“Funny aren’t you. The two ways are that you drop the case you are on right now or we give the lesson that you appear to need teaching. I would opt for…”

“Option two,” Drick interrupted. “Sure you would and look you brought seven friends to watch you teach this lesson or are they the rest of the class?”

“We’re all teachers.”

“So this is like a staff room? What kind of school needs eight teachers for each pupil? You must really suck at your jobs.”

“You going to drop the case?”

“Which one?”

“What?”

“Which case? I am working multiple cases at the moment and I have a few that I have had to put on hold as there is no available evidence for me to complete them. Something is bound to come to light sometime though. Not really your problem but it does mean that I cannot be completely sure who you are referring to and which case.”

“The most recent.”

“The triple homicide, well that’s going to be a problem as we have a confession and enough evidence to fry that K-Tag so it is practically closed. Just a paper signing exercise and they are done, they are fully in judiciaries hold now. So since that is it I think we should all go about our day.”

Drick smiled at the confusion that was evident on their would be teacher’s face. “Wait there.” Is all the teacher could say and then they opened what was clearly a private message to someone. They used an implanted wrist communicator and held it up, facing their mouths, so that they could speak quietly and so Drick would not be able to see their lips or any of the scrolled information on the comms tattoo screen.

Drick did have a moment as they did this to note that the comm id was masked and merely a stream of garbage symbols. Cute. However the surveillance package that was fitted to Drick’s suit would be able to intercept the transmission stream, might give Drick something to work with later. Drick knew some of the best data slicer’s in the system.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the lead teacher was speaking low and had a vocal distortion system but Drick could hear them clearly.

“What is it?” A sharp voice, masked by a filter, used to authority though, that was clear from the powerful intonations.

“The investigator says the case is pretty much out of their hands now and is a judiciary matter. I was wondering if we allow them to continue or do you wish us to insist on some other matter?”

“The case is still open, they are lying.”

Drick watched them look up, Drick smiled sweetly. “You’re lying.”

“I am not, are you sure you wanted my last case?”

“They want to know if we are sure they wanted their last case?” The teacher asked his hidden Head.

“The case involved a perp called Marsh.”

“The case involved a tag called Marsh, is that your triple homicide?”

“Oh, that case,” Drick laughed a little, their joy actually involving the fact that the stream had been open long enough for them to have a much higher chance of useful data. “No, they are not my K-tag triple homicide. They are much more interesting. That makes more sense. Let them know that will you?”

“Let who know?”

“Whomever you are speaking to. Do I know them?”

“You don’t want to.” They looked back at their wrist com and spoke into it this time forgetting to raise it so Drick couldn’t see. Drick hoped the micro-cam on the suit was recording all the extra information that was scrolling on this geniuses arm. “They still are investigating that case.”

“Then you know what to do,” the voice snapped with an anger that was clear across the filters and distortion.

The comms unit was swiped clear and the would be teacher stared into Drick’s eyes. “Well will you give up the Marsh case?”

“I’m compelled to say,” Drick paused and tensed then un-tensed their muscles and let the suit take more of their weight leaving them almost languid. It would not be apparent to these jokers Drick had done so, you would need a good awareness of what the suit was and Drick’s capabilities. “No.”

“Time for the lesson then” said the teacher as they all converged on Drick.

The officer closed Drick’s file. They would be landing soon so it was time to act and not dig deeper into all the missing parts of the narrative they just perused.

Most of it was speculation or here say, anyway.

They were specifically trained. they were judicial approved. They served at redacted locations and did things that were never reported. Same old. Same old. Clearly they were a grown and altered combat model. Clearly they were trouble. But that was not an issue. The officer had noted their tank date. They were an old model. Obsolete.

The officer looked through the database of non company connections and then smiled. They should have thought of this particular connection straight away. They would be optimal. Let us see how the ordained item currently masquerading as Drick faced against a specialist team. They keyed in the personal ident address to initiate a verbal only comlink and were only mildly surprised at the immediate response.

“You have my attention.”

A pause and an intake of breath. The officer in charge hated talking to this particular intellect. They were a microbe, an amoeba, an insignificance, but a useful one. “good, I have a task for you.”

“That is apparent, otherwise you would not have contacted me. We do not have a social narrative.”

“Obviously.” In truth the officer would rather pull their own eyelids from their face than have anything but a clinical relationship with this thing. They tried to keep calm and breathe deeply removing any sense of disgust and dismay. The intellect was a construct. A personality. Once perhaps they may have been an organic but that was before enhancements and downloads to many forms. Switching over a century, or greater, between flesh and electrons had made them a creature. An algorithm that replicated life.

True they once were grown and birthed as any other organic but the shift from electronic only to cellular relationships as a base source for understanding had taken something from them. Maybe the dramas of ancient ages were right. Maybe the energy activity that recorded image stole the soul. When you passed from form to form a little piece of you was lost. It was certainly true of the intellect they had contacted.

“I have work I need you to perform. It will require a significant lesson but it will have to be discreet.”

A glare, “Who. Cease with the extraneous verbiage.”

“They go by the current disposition of Drick and will be landing at south-east quadrant in a justice central shuttle in forty-five minutes. Do you have the resources and capabilities.”

“I will send two operatives. The spaceport is heavily monitored. We will only be able to engage with low level force. Though that is only the method and not the outcome. What is your desire.?”

The officer smiled. “My personal desire is termination with extreme prejudice. But the order I must convey to you is to ensure they do not pursue the current activities. You should be warned that they were tanked as a military grade. Specifically enhanced.”

“That will cost extra. I will send double my usual team.”

“Your usual team is only two. Send quadruple at minimum.”

“That is excessive and will draw attention. So many people increases the chance of secondary and tertiary witness and detection.”

“It will be taken care of. As will the extra fee. If there is a misunderstanding of a stop to their activities then terminate with prejudice and I will ensure that this is covered.”

“I do not care for mere assurances. I require a claim identity so that I have a legal route to pursue with your authority.”

The officer glared, trust was irrelevant this identity only dealt in cold assurances. They ran the request through processing and noted it was the assistant to the commander who authorised and notarised the request. “here is your authority and claim route. You are covered. Do not fail.”

“Failure will not occur. It is one organic. No matter how well they are trained or altered the four teams I will be dispatching will deliver your intentions.”